Building a gaming PC

[remotebandit]

Hey blokes , i need to build a HD 1080P gaming PC to run into my W5000 projector .

I bought a video card today with HDMI 1080P output to put into my current desktop but when i got home realised my motherboard didnt have a PCI Express slot .

Seeing the last PC i build was about 2 years ago , ive totally lost track of what things are these days .

Can someone help me out on a budget price mother board , CPU and ram ( hopefully something that will accept the older IDE HDDs ) .

This is where ill be buying the parts from so hopefully you can find a combo on there :

http://www.msy.com.au/Parts/PARTS.pdf

[NightWolf]

if u want you want nice go the core 2 duo or the core 2 quad
or if u have the $$ go the intel i7 though core2 duo will be fine for 1080p gaming

[Sly33]

Hey RB,

I like to think i am pretty up to date with my gaming rigs and overclocking.

Still to date for current games now and for at least the next 12 months to 2 years dual core is suffice. I personally use an E8400 chip easily overclockable and runs exceptionally well.
What GFX card did you get in the end? NVIDIA or ATI?

The latest line of i7 cores are still overkill as far as processors go plus DDR3 ram still is not really needed... as yet.

I use Netplus and PLE, both in WA which suck for you but on the netplus website you can get a really good indication of items for systems.

Also for some mroe high end techy gear check out www.pccasegear.com.au (http://www.pccasegear.com.au) i buy a lot of my gaming items from there.

Ok as a point of interest use netplus systems page : http://www.netplus.com.au/systems.asp

Here you can see system prices and what to expect. I would give the right hand column of i7 systems a miss and look at the middle column with the e8400, but upgrade monitor, and Graffix card (which you have already)

although i7 is great it really is overkill for todays tech when dual core still works well and quad core has not fully been utilised in gaming yet alone the i7 core....

hope that helps.

Also check out this area, provides a lot of good info on system builds etc

http://www.skylinesaustralia.com/forums/PC-and-Games-Discussion-f16.html

[NightWolf]

im a gamer myself on pc i still use a nvidia gts512 and it still rocks on todays gamne releases running in high def i use a quad core

[shaun]

What card did you buy? Hope you did not skimp on the card.

[shaun]

im a gamer myself on pc i still use a nvidia gts512 and it still rocks on todays gamne releases running in high def i use a quad core
I think you left out what card that is mate, 8800?
I run two overclocked 8800 GTS cards in my rig.

[remotebandit]

ohh yeah , sorry .

I bought a Gigabyte HD4670 1gb DDR3 video card with HDMI out .

wasnt the cheapest but wasnt the most expensive but ive always liked the gigabyte stuff and on 1 of the HD forums people are saying they are the best value for money

[NightWolf]

i would of gone nvidia my self

[shaun]

its a basic card but will do what you want unless you start playing the resouce damanding games out there. what OS you planing on using? you might have issues running the new gear on XP if you dont like vista but you could DL a cracked copy of win7 and then buy a copy when its release soon. CPU- Well I run a quad core and love it but a duel core will do just fine also. Not sure on what motherboards are around right now as I have not been looking at tech sites for a while but a forum like atomic is a great place to go to.

[shaun]

http://www.atomicmpc.com.au/ go to the forums and start reading.

[Sly33]

P35 DS3 seems to be the norm when dealing with the dual cores.

I do like the ATI range but am now a bit more knowledgeable about the Nvidia side of things, I am looking at getting the gtx 275 in the next couple of months.

There are some very resource hungry games out there but they are generally gfx card hungry not cpu hungry, ie test your games on 'crysis' that will tell you if you have a really good set up or not. As a bench mark test 3dmark 06 is a gamers bench mark to see how their rig compares to others, pretty much 12000 points and up is a nice rig.

[remotebandit]

still can go the Nvidea , i havnt opened this 1 and they said they will change it if the plastic wrap is still on it .

Any of the NVidea ones have HDMI out and run AGP ?

[shaun]

The gtx 275 is a nice card but will cost a lot more than what you have rb. On a buget Nvidia the 9600 is on par or a tad better than what you already have.

[shaun]

If I was updating right now I would love to get the Radeon HD 4870 X2 card. 2.4 teraFLOPS of graphics horse power Mmmmmmmm.

[shaun]

http://internetgames.about.com/od/hardware/tp/tpvideocards.htm have a look at that write up. The Radeon HD 4850 is a good card if your not looking to blow the buget while still having the power to run the newest games and theres nothing wrong with ATI but if you want a cost effective Nvidia card then the GTX 260 is worth a look.

[stretch]

Stick with the nvidia graphics card as there is more support gaming wise. Good card to start with is a 9800gt gigabyte card. E8400 intel dual core. pro5 asus mother board. 4 gigs of memory and you will be sweet. Plus a good power supply to run it.

[Sly33]

would definately the the nvidia gtx 260.... nice card and with the newer release out (well about 4 months ago) the 260 has come down in price somewhat.

Yup the 260 has it for me.

[remotebandit]

yes i did buy a heavy duty power supply today as they told me i need something beefy to start running these HDMI video cards , think it was a 500Watter ??? cant remember , didnt look .

The 260 is still about $200+ ... ill have to see how i go as this little upgrade is now going to be a full fledged $800 - $1000 investment after i get a Mother board , hdd , ram cpu ... dont know where im going now .. confused

[NightWolf]

rb the nvidia cards do hdmi via a adaptor plug that they come with

i run hdmi from pc to the loung room tv and play games in hd on the lcd tv its great fun

and thats on a 8800gts and crysis didnt make my card cry even the latest games still handle fine

[obzELiTe]

i was going to keep quiet. but i'll just tell you what i use for gaming.

gigabyte m/b ep45-ds3
Intel Core 2 Duo E8500
Geforce 9600 GT
geil 2gb ddr2

theres also the 850w power supply
numerous hard drives, every connection is used.
and a case with a decent number of fans to move the heat.

basically the best performance i could get before prices started to sky rocket with little return.

[shaun]

RB what brand of PSU is it? Cheap PSU's kill computers over time. 500w is not that beefy as you put it compaired to what most gaming computers run theses days.

[remotebandit]

brand i think is " cooler power " and its got on the box " extreeme power plus "

500W

Bloody heavy for its size , feels like a brick

[shaun]

You mean Cooler Master? ok brand if its that. Never heard of cooler power.

[remotebandit]

:o i stand corrected

[BIG PETE]

i am trying to understand all this but it is really hurting my head
why do you need a monster computer to play games

[obzELiTe]

500w should be ok, but that may be peak not continuous. some power supplies are extremely overrated.

[NightWolf]

the bigger psu is for cpu it needs it so do vid cards

[shaun]

i am trying to understand all this but it is really hurting my head
why do you need a monster computer to play games
The amount of data crunching going on is mind numming with the new games. Its like this, A ps3 or xbox 360 or whatever other game console is like analog tv quality and the computer is like blue ray quality. Playing some of the newer games with the settings maxed out is just mind blowing in detail and so on.

[remotebandit]

this is the reason im going to PC gaming .

I love the PS3 but 90% of games are written in 720p and on a 1080P projector , its excellent but not 1 for 1 pixel so its slightly smudged .

I have 2 games on PS3 that are 1080P ( grand tourismo and ridge racer ) and the clarity is just amazing and i cant go back to the other games as its like going from digital tv back to analogue .

I want to play PC games through a native HDMI off the PC .

[obzELiTe]

you know your vid card likes power when it has two power connectors :) and the fan sounds like something you expect would have been taken off a v8

[shaun]

you know your vid card likes power when it has two power connectors :) and the fan sounds like something you expect would have been taken off a v8
And when its the same size as a laptop computer lol.

[remotebandit]

Shauns creemed his pants about 10 times tonight talking about it , kinda like Kai going on about his apples ... lol



Sorry kai , added that for comedy reasons but **** it was funny hey

[remotebandit]

im officially now with Big Pete , ive lost the plot as its all bloody too confusing now with what works with what .

Ive decided to go this quad processor :

http://processorfinder.intel.com/details.aspx?sSpec=SLAWQ



All the mother boards im looking at say they only support core2 but am wondering if this is different to quad 4 or another base name for it because i cant believe this place doesnt sell a mother bord to support the quad 1

Which mother board on these peoples list in the below link will work for the above quad processor and still gives me PCI express slots


http://www.msy.com.au/Parts/PARTS.pdf

[NightWolf]

dude get a intel mobo they are $120 and ddr 2 and take quad core cause im using one
i build pc's alot for people

[obzELiTe]

for gaming a quad core is waste.

actually for anything not multi threaded quad core is a waste.

that chip is clocked at 2.83, that will be the slowest for any single threaded app out of all the core 2 processors, go the duel core 8600 for 30 bucks more and its clocked a 3.33ghz and for single threaded apps its still faster than some of the new i7 cores.

[NightWolf]

like my quad but i do a lot of video editing for people with home vids ect so i make good use of it

[remotebandit]

yes , this was pointed out to me today so reason i was thinking quad is :

Gaming
1080P video editing to burn to blue ray disks
Digital Tuner card running all the time
PVR running 6 cameras all the time

As i said originally was going to use it as gaming only but now am going to use it as almost a multimedia center so i now doubt a dual core is going to cut it .

yeah ?

[obzELiTe]

you might see some boost running everything together, but if a program isn't multi threaded it will still only run as fast as it can on one core.
the OS will try and spread the load, but while running multiple apps, but it will just assign an app to a specific core and that core will get maxxed out.
video editing programs like premier are multi threaded so they will see a big improvement, but you need to check the apps your running and see if multi core cpus will make a dramatic improvement.

[Sly33]

for gaming a quad core is waste.

actually for anything not multi threaded quad core is a waste.

that chip is clocked at 2.83, that will be the slowest for any single threaded app out of all the core 2 processors, go the duel core 8600 for 30 bucks more and its clocked a 3.33ghz and for single threaded apps its still faster than some of the new i7 cores.

Or by the e8400 and clock it comfortably on the standard cooling system to 3.5 - 3.6 ghz (go 3.5 for a bit more reliability) there are maaaany threads on the OC efficiency of the e8400. e8400 costs less but combined with a nice gigabyte motherboard and a $60 fan you can run 4.00ghz stable!

[Sly33]

P.S. go a gigabyte motherboard, very good motherboards!

P35 DS3 and above would be fine for dual or quads.

[remotebandit]

I got :

Intel E8500 3.16ghz - $245
Mother board GAEP45-UD3R - $160
1.5Tb HDD - $160
Kingston 2 x 2gb Ram - $70
850W Power supply as they said this mother board needs something big


And now for the ****ing next issues coz PC building never ****ing ends , i now need vista or Windows 7 as XP apparently stutters with HD editing and it also doesnt recognise anything more than 3.4Gb ram .

This little HDMI output bullshit has cost me $1G so not to happy about it but had to be done .

[NightWolf]

id go win 7 if u can it will be out shortly u can get vista with win 7 upgrade cheap

[remotebandit]

yeah just went and got a copy from my uncle of win 7 . apparently this version expires in june next year but ill work it out closer to then when someone will have worked out a crack

Now i hope its compat with my car games but i can bet my balls they wont work on it

[Sly33]

nice little system you got there!
Good motherboard aswell, let me know when your ready to clock that sucker ;-)

Currently you can buy Vista that has a free upgrade to Windows 7 when it comes out, which would make sense.

I did hate Vista but am kinda getting use to it, unfortunately though Vista will take about 350GB off that 1.5Terrabyte machine as it keeps it for back up should your pc go down, you can turn it off though to regain your hard disk space.

[shaun]

RB 1g is nothing to spend when it comes to a gaming rig. My current rig cost me over 5g all up but I did buy a quad core when they had only just come out so that alone cost a shite load.

[obzELiTe]

all 32 bit operating systems have the same limit.

you will need 64bit to utilize more memory.

run a duel boot system, xp for games, vista or windows 7 64 bit for apps.

i ended up buying vista, but i have 9 machine running the same copy so its all good.
first os i've had to buy, actually its the first software i've ever bought :)

[remotebandit]

Hey obz .

Just finished installing it and your right , sees 4gig ram but only 3 available to use .

Ill have to find a copy of a 64Bit somewhere , im assuming this will be the issues with HD editing ( not that ive tried hooking up the full HD camera to it yet ) .

I must say though , playing with windows 7 , looke bloody awesome , picked up all my drivers straight away , nothing to stuff around with to install . speed is instantanious when i open an app or screen but they all are when its a fresh system and no porn sites have been hit ... lol .

The main thing i love and was the whole reason for the upgrade is that i can have it on the monitor at what ever resolution i want but when i plug the HDMI cable in from the projector , it goes directly to 1080P and the screen locks in pixel 1:1 perfectly not like that old DVI to HDMI converter piece of crap card i had on the other system ( i think it was an analogue output on the last ... just my thoughts )

Any hints on where to buy a 64Bit version of this .

[remotebandit]

ohh yeah , normal DVD movies shit all over playing them thriough the PS3 . PS3 reckon they upscale a standard DVD but thats total crap after seeing that this pc plays normal DVDs nearly as sharp as blurays ( still no where near but allot sharper than what the blothchy ps3 is putting out ) .

I might invest in a Blue Ray rom for it as well

Shaun , 1G is heaps when all i wanted was 1 HDMI output ... lol

[shaun]

No point going 64bit right now RB. Vista 32 bit will only see 3 gig but I have seen plenty of coments stateing 32bit will still use more than 3gig but then you dont really ever use over 3gig anyway as the GPU takes most of the strain when playing games.
What build is the win7 you instaled?

[Sly33]

Shaun, it is XP that only recognises 3gig (there are work arounds)
32bit Vista still definately does see more than 3 gig.... i know i run vista 32 and sees 4ghz just fine.
For gaming Vista would still be more beneficial than XP, vista was built with DX 10 in it, XP wasnt, however,again, there is a work around on XP.

IF YOUR VISTA 32 IS ONLY SHOWING 3 GIG RAM SOMETHING IS NOT RIGHT

Only disadvantages on Vista that i notice is the time to load, and open apps/exes can be delayed, plus idol ram at 30% + annoys me. Oh and the usage of about 15- 20% of hard disk space purely on a restoration back up, although that can be turned off.

[Matt]

ohh yeah , sorry .

I bought a Gigabyte HD4670 1gb DDR3 video card with HDMI out .

wasnt the cheapest but wasnt the most expensive but ive always liked the gigabyte stuff and on 1 of the HD forums people are saying they are the best value for money


AGP?

and, how much $ ?

[remotebandit]

PCI Express Matt , hence the whole reason i had to buy a new PC as my old 1 didnt have AGP .

Ivew bought so much shit these last 2 days i cant remember how much , $170?????

[shaun]

Theres thousands of threads on 32bit Vista and running 4gigs of ram and while I just had a quick look again on the matter, the facts seem all over the place so I dunno. When I had my computer built vista was still new and I took the info I read at that time as been right on vista 32 bit not surporting 4 gigs of ram like 32bit XP. A quick read so far has said vista will see the 4gigs of ram depending on the components fitted but wont use it?

[remotebandit]

yeah Shaun , i did a bit of research as well over the last few hours , seems the 64bit isnt compatible with allot of games and programs i have anyway so im just gonna stick with this . God knows its running quick enough and i plugged the HD camera into it and **** me dead its quick and editing is spot on ... once again i havnt got much loaded onto it so this could be half the reason .

[obzELiTe]

32 bit is 32 bit no matter what os you use, 32 bit has a 4gb limit and that includes the memory on the video card. so stick 4gb in the motherboard and 1gb video card and 1gb of that m/b ram just wont get used.

then theres the fact that the system itself reserves memory for its own use, so that 3gb the operating system can see isn't all available for it anyway.

the workaround is pae, but the system still sees its limit, 2^32 4gb. pae also require a motherboard that is capable of switching address spaces and doesn't actually speed anything up as your just introducing an extra bottleneck in the system plus you get massive problems/slowdowns when a program that wants to access its memory that has been swapped out. the system cant access the two address spaces simultaneouly.

dx10 will only be useful once programs start using it. i think you may find about 20 games actually coded to use it. out of that i think 5 may be worth playing.
and out of the ones coded it use, some have only been patched to use it, of that about half are still dx10 and the other half dx10.1 whose added features can only be used by the latest video cards anyway.

ppl wonder why consoles are booming.

welcome to the fun world of pc gaming, you may need to upgrade in 6 months btw :p

[shaun]

[quote=obzELiTe;69002]32 bit is 32 bit no matter what os you use, 32 bit has a 4gb limit and that includes the memory on the video card. so stick 4gb in the motherboard and 1gb video card and 1gb of that m/b ram just wont get used.

then theres the fact that the system itself reserves memory for its own use, so that 3gb the operating system can see isn't all available for it anyway.



Thanks obz thats kinda what I thought was the case with vista 32bit.

[Morsolo]

Got any updates Adam?

With the release of the Core i5 and the i7-800's, there are plenty of new technologies rolling out.

If you ever need any computer help, drop me a PM or something because I know "more than enough" about computers.

[remotebandit]

Fanx bloke but all sorted , the thing runs awesome now .

May need some help starting up my website though so next time i see ya well chat .

Adam .